CAMP PENDLETON — A person was being held in connection with the suspected homicide of a 29-year-old sailor who was found in a Camp Pendleton guard shack, Navy officials said yesterday.

The body of Seaman August Provost of Houston was discovered about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday on the western edge of the base, said Doug Sayers, a spokesman for Navy Region Southwest.

An autopsy was completed yesterday, but authorities were waiting for results of toxicology tests to determine the cause of death.

A "person of interest" was being held in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. No charges have been filed.

The death has local gay activists calling for an investigation into whether Provost was slain because of his sexual orientation. "We're definitely monitoring this, and trust and hope the military will investigate this in the professional way it should," said Nicole Murray-Ramirez, chairman of San Diego's Human Rights Commission.

Murray-Ramirez said he had asked two San Diego members of Congress, Reps. Susan Davis and Bob Filner, to make official inquiries with the military.

Provost's partner, Kaether Cordero, said Provost was openly gay but kept his private life quiet for the most part.

"People who he was friends with, I knew that they knew," Cordero said from Houston. "He didn't care that they knew. He trusted them."

Provost had recently complained to family members about a person who was harassing him, so they advised him to tell his supervisor, said his sister, Akalia Provost of Houston.

"He's the type that if someone comes at him, he walks away. He never stands and argues," she said. "He didn't deserve anything but a good life."

Provost was assigned to Assault Craft Unit 5 at Camp Pendleton. He had completed three years of college before joining the Navy in March 2008 to help finance his education, and was studying to become an architectural engineer.